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“A hot time in old Seacouver town tonight,” Joe Dawson grumbled to himself as he coasted his Jeep into the alley shadows behind his bar. A helicopter bristling with searchlights lit up the street behind him. Sirens howled in the night and lights flashed across the city skyline like lightning.
Joe’s phone vibrated, and the ringtone ID let out a low, sultry whistle before he could get it out. “Amanda! You watching the fireworks on TV?” He held the phone away from his ear for a moment at her tart reply. “No, no quickenings, no one we know. Just Air Force contrails. Or maybe those SHIELD jokers playing with lasers. Yeah. I’ll keep an eye out, I promise. I’m holing up in the bar til the ruckus dies down, or they decide to call in the Marines.” He laughed. “You’re right, I’d make a mint, but they’ve curfewed me closed.”
He listened again, losing his smile, his voice roughening in shared sadness. “No sign of either of them. Not since Richie. Some Watcher, huh? But I’m keeping an eye out. And keeping the beer cold.” Joe’s voice gentled. “I miss them too. And you. You take care, lady.”
He clicked the phone shut. Joe didn’t have much left anchoring him to Seacouver since Duncan MacLeod and Methos had gone missing. Joe figured if he took care of his own bar, and stage, (and mortgage) in the meantime, they might show up in a year or eight. Or not. A Watcher who mislaid his Immortal too often had a dead-end career track, but keg-tapping rarely went out of style. Which was why he’d dodged the roadblocks to get back to the bar. He wasn’t about to lose the only investment he had left to stray looters during the emergency. Or Marines.
Joe snugged his Jeep up next to the loading dock and eased up the ramp, leaning on his cane to unlock the door and sliding in as another helicopter churned the air overhead. He ground his teeth and slammed the door on the hammering racket. “Stupid Chinooks. Never there when you need them...” he muttered.
Slowly, he let out a long sigh of relief, stripped off his coat and gloves, and headed to the bar. He thought he could afford to buy himself a beer this week. Or three. He perversely thanked his lucky stars that Methos and Mac were off the grid today--he couldn’t imagine what kind of trouble they would get in with Fury and his SHIELD goons in town.
Joe grabbed a couple of bottles of Molson and pushed his aching legs the last few steps to the stage, where his guitar could drown out the gunships. He powered up the soundboard and settled on the edge of the stage, leaning way back to reach for his guitar case.
And then the roof caved in.
****
“Are you all right?” a static-charged voice asked from the center of a shattered man-shaped depression in his dance floor.
“Just. Dandy.”
“Cool. Got any booster cables you can lend me?”
Joe’s head rang, his scalp was leaking from a graze with a scrap of lumber, and about a ton of roofing material had him trapped up against the stage from the knees, down. There was a 3 yard wide hole in the bar ceiling, going up two floors and exposing the starry sky. “Of all the bars in all the world, Tony Stark had to crash and burn into mine.”
The man in a ritzy red and gold armored suit lay in a lazy heap. A glowing knob in the center of the suit sizzled and spat a small fountain of sparks, then dimmed. A metal-encased hand pushed up the faceplate, apparently with a great deal of difficulty. “Google Earth is a wonderful app. You have very good reviews. ‘Fast service,’ it said.”
“You mean you had a choice?” Joe asked, incensed. You could have killed my customers!”
“What customers? No lights, one car--thermal imagery is a wonderful app, too. If it’s any consolation, you were reading pretty hot. I missed you by five whole yards! Still, I was aiming for seven. Have to calibrate that,” Stark admitted. “Besides, it was Joe’s Bar, or Joe’s Crab Shack. Just think of the mess if I’d missed the roof and hit the dumpster in Joe’s Crab Shack. What would you have done?”
“I would have called AAA.” But Joe admitted to himself he didn’t have an unbiased answer to that question--he hosed down his loading dock every week. And he’d smelled the dumpster at the Crab Shack one unfortunate night. That had been a truly disgusting quickening to witness, and cats had followed him for a month, afterward. “How about a nice empty baseball field?”
“Crashing and burning in public places tarnishes my image. Or so my PR department claims.”
“But low rent blues taverns are fair game? Next time, think Hard Rock Cafe,” Joe said. “They have a better credit line than I do.”
“Vastly inferior service,” Stark claimed. “And bilious acoustics. Besides, you have a better reputation for discretion, Joe. That’s your name, right? The owner of this fine establishment? ‘Joe’s Bar?”
Joe sighed. He really, really didn’t want to be on a first name basis with an egomaniacal trust-funder with a reputation for cross-dressing as a weapon of mass destruction. “My patrons get my hospitality and discretion. Vandals get a call to the cops, Mr. Stark of Stark Industries.”
“Call me Tony. And it’s Stark International. Stark Industries was my father’s business.”
“A rose is a rose.”
“What? Hey, is that a beer? And a power cord?” Stark’s eyes darted around the room. “How about a round for the house? A hefeweizen with a little 220 volt chaser, hold the orange. I have a reputation to uphold, too. Tipping is my forte.” Stark’s best salesman smile wilted a little as he focused on the destroyed bar. “Can you move it, buddy? Because I really need power now. Or else.” Stark’s manic chatter ground to a halt as he finally noticed the mountain of debris that had his host trapped.
“Or else what, Tony buddy?” Joe drawled, hoping he wasn’t wasting the sarcasm. “And there I thought the term ‘power-hungry’ was so seventies.”
“Or I die.” Stark clarified with a strait-jacketed shrug. “Think of this tuxedo as a glorified pacemaker.”
“Or you die? Just like that?” Joe hesitated, not quite convinced. Still, he glanced over at the bar’s land line. “You dialed in my bar for your Viking funeral, but didn’t think to call 911?”
“Dispatch is a little busy right now,” Stark said dryly. “Didn’t you hear the helicopters?”
“I hear ‘em in my sleep,” Joe muttered, then caught himself. “I suppose I could use the publicity if you croaked here, but it would be a pain tripping over all the wreaths your woebegone ex-girlfriends are bound to leave around.”
“You think?” Stark perked up a bit at the idea.
“Nah. Not worth taking the chance, though. The few cougars who wandered in would probably all drink blender drinks or appletinis. I’d have to plant ferns.” Joe mulled it over. “I guess getting you fixed up is easier than burying you in the basement. Three prong 220 okay? I can maybe run something from the kitchen. Or the light board.”
“A jack off the sound board will do if it’s closer and quicker. Quicker is good.” Stark twisted, the cords of his neck straining. His right knee splayed, and a single, lonely spark dribbled out of his boot jet. “Maybe you could reach the cords with one of those broken boards.”
“Like the one you bounced off my head?” Joe gingerly touched his scalp again. His fingers came away red. With a grimace, he wiped them off on his shirt.
“If I could reactivate the servos and reboot the arc--all I need is a little power boost.” Stark’s face darkened in effort as he fought to roll the imprisoning suit over closer to the stage. It didn’t even twitch, this time.
“Wouldn’t that fry my soundboard?” Joe asked suspiciously, even while eying the distances and cord lengths.
“Sure would. So?” Stark waved the idea off, and the bright light in his chest went ‘fzzt’ and dimmed even more. “I can buy you a whole new studio.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that.” Stark laughed carelessly. “Hey, it’s all moot, anyway, since we’re both dead men talking, here. You’re clearly in shock with your legs pinned under a roof beam, and I’m stuck in a suit that’s deader than Elvis.”
”Kids these days. No sand. And watch out for what you say about Elvis,” Joe said dismissively, as he picked up a board and used it to try and lever away the weight holding him trapped. “If you don’t know how to have fun, don’t practice here.”
“This wouldn’t be the worst party I attended this year, if it weren’t for the fact that in twenty minutes the northern half of Seacouver is going to be turned into a giant smoking crater by a deranged agent of Hydra. And right after that, the south end is going to be taken out by the resultant tidal wave. As I said, it’s all theoretical, as the physicist said to the bishop.”
“You forgot to mention the smoking crater part before, jackass. Why did you waste time yakking about your sterling reputation?”
Stark’s eyes dropped apologetically to where Joe’s knees disappeared between the solid wall of the stage and a large piece of the roof. “When I calculated the weight of that beam, I realized we both ran out the clock.”
“Well, the hell with your theories, bullshitter.” Joe reached for his belt buckle.
“Hey, wait,” Stark said in alarm as Joe started wriggling out of his Levis, rummaging and tugging at his thighs.
“Just be glad I didn’t go commando today.” Joe was in fact fervently thanking his lucky Irish stars and Maytag washing machine he hadn’t gone commando today. Getting around in the splintered debris was going to be a very dicey proposition as it was, and now he’d have to rush. He popped his stumps loose from the cups of his prostheses and surveyed a path through the destruction.
“What happened to your--”
“--legs?” Joe grinned with more teeth than humor as he moved his guitar safely out of the way and pushed ahead on his hands. “The military industrial complex happened to them. What, didn’t read the fine print in my CV on the way down?”
“I didn’t get past ‘Marine’ and ‘Vietnam.’ I have a personal assistant for the details,” Stark offered.
“Only one? I pity the fool. I’d think you’d be crawling with minions,” Joe scoffed. “We could use a minion or two right now, spiff up the decor,” he added ruefully, as he clambered over the debris that hadn’t managed to land on him. “Ow. Fuck.”
“Are you all right?” Stark asked belatedly. “Where are you hurt?”
“Now you ask,” Joe growled as he yanked out the splinter with an oath and resumed rummaging near the back of the stage. “What kind of cabling? Male? Female?”
“I can plug into anything, and anything can plug into me,” Stark boasted.
“Why am I not surprised?” Joe muttered balefully.
“What are you planning?” Stark complained, trying to crane his neck to see over the lip of the stage.
“I’m planning on kicking your tail to the curb, trustfunder. I don’t need your kind around here. It’s bad for business.”
“Make sure the main power is on. And you keep clear of live wires,” Stark urged.
“Micromanage, much?”
Joe tossed a thick black cable over the stage edge. It landed on the chest plate, within inches of Stark’s hand. “Can you plug that in? Then I’ll throw the power switch from back here. If your glorified catsuit flips out, I don’t want to be in the line of fire.”
Five seconds of silence stretched to ten. “...”
“I take it that’s a no.” Joe poked his head over stage right, looming over Stark. When he leaned over to reel in the cord, he felt a trickle of blood run down his sideburn and beyond.
“Your beard is dripping on me.”
“Tough.” Joe wiped the side of his face on his sleeve and stared at it for only a moment. “Okay, so not getting a date tonight.” He shrugged, and ducked back into the pile.
“Been awhile?” Stark prodded.
“Define ‘awhile’,” Joe coughed, and ducked, as something clanked overhead. The sudden hum of power coursing through damaged components made his teeth vibrate. “Damn, just when I got the sound balanced,” he lamented as he rigged an extension cord and another power switch.
Stark floundered politely before taking a wild guess. “Four months?”
Joe threw a surge protector over the stage, just missing Stark’s nose.
“Four days?” Stark quickly amended. “I know a few ladies that make house calls.”
“I wonder if the ladies would still like you if your head was stuffed up your iron ass?” Joe asked as he shoved a new coil of cable ahead of him to the edge of the stage.
“Temper, temper, Joe.” Stark grinned like a fiend. “Not that others haven’t tried.”
“Imagine that.” Joe grinned back, imagining just that. Then he gazed down, measuring the drop to the lumber and pipe strewn floor.
“How are you going to get down?” Stark asked doubtfully.
“I’ve fallen off far taller stages for far more forgettable reasons,” Joe could boast of a few such exploits in his checkered career. He slowly twisted, easing his right arm and body off the four foot high stage, suspending his weight by his left arm only. “Piece of cake.”
Still, Stark winced when Joe let go his grip on the dusty stage and he crashed and rolled on his right shoulder, ending up sprawled between the unmoving legs of the iron suit. “See anything you like?” he asked hopefully.
“Not. One. More. Word.”
Joe hauled his bruised and battered body over to the power strip and the trailing electrical jack. “Will this socket do?” Joe asked, tapping a likely looking receptacle tucked in the seam of the glowing chest decoration.
Stark nodded.
“Will it work?”
Another nod. And a shrug. And an eyebrow.
Joe relented, as he pressed the plug home. “Okay, one more word allowed. Will this hurt?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“That’s two words. You always have to push it, don’t you?” Joe asked rhetorically. Without waiting for a reply he scooted back, moving as far away from contact with the metal armor as the debris pile allowed. “They say a little pain is good for the soul,” he added, but he wasn’t smiling anymore.
“You’d know. If anyone did.” Stark stared in challenge at his
rescuer.
“Wiseguy.” Joe flipped the switch.
****
“See you around, Joe! I’ve got bombs to defuse and bad guys to defenestrate!” Stark grinned and with a sound like an outgoing mortar, he clicked his faceplate in place and levitated through the hole in Joe’s roof. He flew like a drunk, but he flew.
“Not if I see you first!” Joe hacked some evil-looking dust out of his throat and looked around for something to throw at the man in the red and gold suit, but all that was left of him was a vapor trail. Stark’s exit had been almost as fast and messy as his entrance.
“Worse than damn Immortals,” Joe grumbled to himself as he surveyed the damage. Then he spied the two beer bottles he’d brought to the stage before the ceiling had imploded. They’d rolled down beneath the stage, miraculously intact. “Dark cloud, meet silver lining,” he allowed philosophically. “What say we drink to defusings and defenestrations?” he inquired politely, before demolishing the beer he fondly dubbed ‘Smoking Crater Ale.’
Joe briefly toyed with the idea of saving his second lucky beer ‘Tsunami Stout’ for his next meeting with Stark, where he could experiment with a little defenestration of his own, but good sense overruled. After all, the tsunami hadn’t been completely ruled out yet, and an irrational voice in the back of his brain talked him into finishing it. Just in case.
Then, with an artful tap on the stage edge, he created a serviceable cutting tool out of the empty bottle, and set to reducing the Levis still attached to his prostheses into a pair of cutoffs. “And now, to find something to match the ensemble,” Joe surveyed his bloodied shirt, and decisively ripped some strips from the hem and wrapped them around his still porous head. “Et voila’. Note to self--delete ‘Project Runway’ from cable.”
After pulling the shirtsleeves off, Joe wound them around his hands to protect them from catching more splinters, and put his head down to scoot to his own rescue. Or at the very least, closer to the bar, where he was pretty sure he had stocked a lot more lucky beer. With a sharp pang of regret he left his best pair of legs trapped beneath the wreckage.
Thus armored against the shattered surroundings, Joe carefully picked his way toward the bar to find his coat and see if his phone still worked. “Who am I gonna call, anyway, SHIELD?” Joe muttered ruefully to himself.
“The number’s unlisted, but if you’d like me to pass on a message to Nick Fury, I’d be happy to,” a woman’s low, lilting voice floated out of the dark hall leading to the alley in the back.
Reflexively, Joe rolled up against the nearest beam for cover, before realizing he’d left his gun behind the bar. Most of the women who wanted to kill him had given up that particular hobby. That he knew of. And none of them had voices that caressed his ears like an Irish mist. “What do you want?”
“My boss said he forgot to pay his bar tab.”
“And barhopping behind him is in your job description?” Joe peered into the dark, trying to get a glimpse of the intruder.
“Among other things.”
“I left that door locked,” he pointed out belatedly, straightening the shreds of his shirt in imaginary dignity.
“See? Things. Lock picking has proved to be a surprisingly useful skill in my employment at Stark International.”
“Doors or handcuffs?” Joe shot back.
“It would be unprofessional to tell,” his visitor laughed, and finally walked into the splash of light provided by the back bar. “Hello, I’m Pepper Potts.” Her legs were long, her blouse perfectly tailored, and Joe managed to appreciate every inch of territory from toe to eartip before coming to his professional senses.
“Joe. Dawson,” he admitted, still staring. He reached up automatically to shake her hand, but pulled back halfway. “Sorry, the place is a mess, and I’m worse,” he apologized, stripping off the filthy wrap. “Tonight is so not my night to impress the ladies,” he added, resigned. “I take it your boss has saved the day?”
“The night, anyway. Tomorrow is another day,” she said, and Joe could hear carefully hidden fatigue in the pitch of her voice.
“Let me know when it’s convenient, and I’ll shoot him for you,” Joe offered in sympathy.
“I’ll keep your offer on file. With the others,” Pepper said, smiling as she walked behind Joe’s bar without so much as a by-your-leave and located a fairly clean rag and some water. “How’s your head?” she asked calmly, dabbing at the wound.
Joe ducked twice before she boxed him in and he submitted. “It’s still attached,” he replied, manfully managing to keep his eyes on neutral territory. For the most part. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be handling Stark’s post game press conference?”
“I am,” she answered with vague diplomacy. “And the paramedics are on their way, too. We’ll get you looked at properly, and a few pictures. Pretty soon you’ll outbook the House of Blues.”
“Oh, no,” Joe leaned back out of her reach, and glanced at the door, and then through the hole in the roof, where yet another annoying helicopter was hovering. And shining down a light. On _his_ bar. “You didn’t.”
“You’re a hero, Joe, and by the time we’re through, all Seacouver will know it. And I’ll make sure Tony gets the bar repaired before the buzz dies down.” Joe clenched in horror at the thought, and Pepper’s smile faltered.
“Don’t. Just...don’t,” he asked tightly, refusing to plead. “I’m no hero. And I’m in a damn good position to know,” he added, staring up at her with overloaded irony from his ungainly position on the floor. There was no way to explain that this tangle with Tony Stark was going to finish his reputation and probably his career with the Watchers. If curious spooks from SHIELD started looking up his jacket, the Watchers might just cut their losses and just shoot him dead. “Go on. Beat it, and take the reporters and minions and the guy in the big fancy suit with you.”
Pepper hesitated, apparently gauging his resolve, but suddenly nodded. “Okay, Joe, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll go clear out the crowd, then come back and drive you to the hospital. You still need stitches, and I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“And tell that guy with the iron ego that if he shows up here again, I’ll kick his ass,” he offered in oblique apology. “Just for you.”
“I’d like to see that,” Pepper allowed, gracing him with one last smile.
It took only ten minutes for her to dispose of the newsmen and Stark’s retinue (nine minutes of which were directed at Iron Man himself, who had an unnatural attraction to the bar.) When she returned, Joe Dawson was nowhere to be found.
****
“You ordered Jarvis to load new music onto my play list,” Tony Stark accused as he invaded Pepper’s office while she was sorting his mail. “Every two hours some blues guy keeps sneaking in.”
“Don’t you like it?” she asked calmly.
Stark didn’t admit to any such thing. “The fidelity is lousy. Crowd sounds are unfiltered. Jarvis won’t tell me who it is. I’ve never heard the songs, but they’re familiar. It’s driving me crazy.”
Pepper smiled. Mission accomplished. “They’re Joe Dawson bootlegs. It took me weeks to chase them down.”
“Well, at least get some decent studio recordings.”
“There aren’t any.”
“What?”
“As far as I can find out, he’s never recorded a professional session, ever. There’s rumors he’s refused to sign with at least three labels.”
“Our boy Joe has a shy streak. Maybe we should look into that.”
“Maybe we should just leave him alone,” Pepper said sharply, misliking the gleam in Stark’s eye. “He did you a favor, Tony, even though you wrecked his bar. If you couldn’t respect his property, you could at least allow him his privacy.”
“He saved my life, and won’t let me pay him back,” Stark sulked. “Ingrate.”
Pepper sighed. “Speaking of which, the check you sent was returned. Again. Marked ‘Return to Stark Industries.’ There’s another card inside.” She slid the envelope toward him over the top of her gleaming desk.
“What is it this time?”
“International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Shall I put it with the others?”
“Do you think he’s trying to tell me something? Prostheses Without Borders, Unicef Antimining Commission, Physicians for Peace. I’m getting a complex.”
“Do you think he’d think you’d listen?” Pepper asked rhetorically. “Joe must be an incurable optimist, at heart.” She tapped the letter. “I could try to deliver a check in person,” she mused.
“That’s what Iron Man is for. To crack the hard nuts.”
****
Iron Man touched down outside Joe’s Bar, where a workman in a blue shirt and cap was methodically dismantling the signature pink neon bar sign. The door was open, but the bar was deserted, the debris removed, the floor swept, the backbar cleaned out. “Where’s Joe?”
“The bar’s closed, bub.” Joe put his screwdriver in is pocket and carefully eased the sign off of its mount and down to the ground. “The bank bought it back. Some redeveloper is going to gentrify the street. They’ll make a ton of money. You should invest.”
Stark took off his helmet and stuck it under his arm, to be polite. “I tried to invest in you. You keep sending the check back.”
“To be honest? I thought about keeping it. Paying off the bar, free and clear... ,” Joe shook his head. “But you know? When the curfew was lifted, and everyone was celebrating, I couldn’t scare up one person in this town that I could share a drink and a yarn with about what happened that night.”
“What are you going to do? Inspirational speeches?”
“There’s a racket for you. No, I’ve got some friends I’ve got to look up, some unfinished business to take care of that I’ve let go too long. Nothing fancy. Just paying a few debts.” Joe looked Stark straight in the eye. “You going to let this go?”
“I hate owing people. They call me up for favors.”
“You should try the alternative. Life’s unfair like that,” Joe let his hand settle on the sign, and glanced down the ramp where the rear door to his Jeep stood open. “There’s one favor you can do me. Huck this sign down there into the Jeep, so I can put it in storage.”
Stark ceremoniously handed Joe his helmet, picking up the sign with ease, but placing it in the Jeep with exaggerated care. “Like that?”
“Yeah. Like that.”
They stared at each other, the silence stretching. Tony Stark gave in first. “Want to get a drink?”
“First round’s on me?” Joe asked warily.
Stark nodded solemnly.
“There’s a bar I know. Delilah’s. You’ll like Delilah. She arm wrestles for beers.”
“Sounds like my kind of bar.”
“No cheating. You have to ditch the armor.”
“Piece of cake.”
Joe grinned. This was going to be fun.
*****
finis